Gladys Lokilamak is always cheery in the afternoons. This is the time that she and her colleagues at Asilong Primary School, West Pokot, normally find fun in education – through laptops. Asilong is 500 km North-West of Nairobi.

by Erick Wamanji

Today, Gladys flips her laptop open, and quickly goes to Wikipedia where she searches for the Circulatory System. An animation pops up. She goes to the Write program and describes what she has seen. She then moves to Record and takes a picture of a whistling thorn in her school compound. She describes it as well.

Bridging a gap
“Children of the countryside are also catching up with their counterparts in cities in terms of technology,” says Joachim Krop Gladys’ head teacher. “E-learning is exciting to the young ones. It improves the quality of education and prepares them for the ICT world that’s ahead of them.”

Though Asilong is a nomadic community characterized by perennial cattle raids and a world that has seen little technology, Gladys is a tech-whiz-kid that uses a little green XO laptop.

“I enjoy the laptop so much because it is interactive. It is easy to remember what I have learnt. Sometimes I take it home. It’s a very handy gadget,” Gladys enthuses.

The same thrill is obvious at Sunrise Academy, Iten about 250 km from Asilong. Using a program called Msingi Pack, grade six pupils, take a mock test, the computer marks and grade the exercise. The students giggle after the results.

400 teachers and 70,000 pupils
Asilong is emblematic of e-learning in Kenya, in which non-governmental actors are taking the lead role. One such organization is Kificom. It trains teachers on implementing ICT for learning. It also installs and maintains computers for schools and coordinates content acquisition. So far, 400 teachers have been trained according to Mathews Kituu, Kificom’s director.

Kituu estimates that some 70,000 pupils in the north rift region are on the e-learning pilot. He happily reports of an improved interest in learning in the region.

Kericho, Keiyo, Uasin-Gishu, Trans-nzoia and Wareng are other districts in the program.
“We have 100 laptops,” Krop boasts. “At first that was enough for all the pupils, but other children learnt about the laptops and the total of pupils got three times. Still we are managing.”

However, schools are confined to pre-loaded programs and cannot surf the internet due to poor connectivity and the high costs of internet.

Livelier than a dead diagram
It is at Wareng High School in Eldoret Town where we meet Kenneth Makokha, a Form Three student, trying to catch-up with Circuits a topic in physics.

“After classes I enjoy exploring issues on my own. Computers are great. They have animations which demonstrate concepts livelier than a dead diagram in a text book,” he says. However, Wareng and Sunrise students use just the normal desk top computer.

What we are grappling with now is development of e-syllabus, says Kituu. For now, apart from Msingi Pack there are no other known credible content developers. That may slow down the e-learning uptake.

Asilong is the last place in the world where you would expect this technological flair. Electricity connection is still a mirage, classrooms have no windows and the walls made of mud are peeling off; other pupil’s classes are stashed in the thickets.

Donation
The Asilong laptops were a generous donation. The donor also supplied four solar panels, four batteries and an inverter. For many other schools, computers are still expensive even though the state zero-rated tax on all ICT gadgets. Most educational stakeholders are not sensitized on the importance of an ICT platform.

“The challenges are many but we take pride in introducing e-learning among nomads. Pupils now have a wider scope of learning from their laptops”, Krop explains. “See we don’t have a library. We don’t have enough teachers either. It is the laptop that is saving the situation around here.”